Selecting an SEO Provider, Search Engine Strategies 2001 Conference, Part 2

Finally, Robin Nobles of the Academy of Web Specialists gave an overview of SEO services from several different focuses: fee structures, guarantees, ownership of pages, and more. Highlights of a portion of her presentation follow.

Fee Structures

Basically, there are no typical fee structures. Most SEO companies offer a variety of packages, but the packages themselves can contain any number of services, such as:

Keyword research;

Optimization of a certain number of existing pages and/or the creation of new information or doorway pages;

Submission to the major engines;

Submission to the major directories;

Link popularity building;

Tweaking the pages a certain number of times to achieve desired results;

Tracking of the sites traffic;

Monthly reports.

Other services can often be added on to these packages, such as:

Creation of theme sites;

Keyword purchases through one of the pay engines like GoTo;

Optimization of additional pages outside of the regular package;

Cloaking software and strategies;

More intense link building;

Maintenance of the site on a monthly basis.

Some SEO firms are now beginning to charge more for time consuming services, such as working with competitive keyword phrases and sites using difficult technology.

Other fee structures mentioned include:

Pay-for-placement plans;

Pay-for-click-through plans;

Payment based on sales; and,

Pay-per-click engines and the directories.

Guarantees

Most SEO firms wont guarantee top 10 results. However, they may guarantee to increase traffic to your site or to increase your rankings.

If they do guarantee top 10 rankings, read the fine print of your contract carefully and find out what stipulations are in place.

Also, most SEO firms wont guarantee an increase in sales unless theyre given access to the site to make it sales friendly.

Competing Clients

Some SEO firms will only work for one client in a given industry. Other SEO companies set themselves up to be experts in a particular industry, such as online casinos or legal Web sites. Still other firms will take on more than one client in a given industry but only if the clients choose a different set of targeted keywords.

In Conclusion

When considering which SEO firm to hire, do your homework carefully. Make sure youre dealing with a reputable company, and be sure that you understand exactly what that company can and will do for your business.

About the Author

This article was written by Robin Nobles, a professional freelance writer and the Director of Training at the Academy of Web Specialists academywebspecialists.com. Over the past few years, she has trained several thousand people in her online and onsite courses in search engine positioning strategies and has written three books that can be ordered through Amazon. Visit the Academys training Web site to learn more about their online courses: http://www.onlinewebtraining.com.

RobinN@acws.com
http://www.academywebspecialists.com